Cast:
Ali Larter (Clear Rivers), A. J. Cook (Kimberly Corman), Michael Landes (Thomas Burke), David Paetkau (Evan Lewis), James Kirk (Tim Carpenter), Lynda Boyd (Nora Carpenter), Keegan Connor Tracy (Kat Jennings), Jonathan Cherry (Rory Peters), T. C. Carson (Eugene Dix), Justina Machado (Isabella Hudson), and Tony Todd (William Bludworth) Directed by David R. Ellis (#437 - Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco)
Review:
You may remember Final Destination (2000) came from a spec script by Jeffrey Reddick that would've been proposed for The X-Files if it wasn't for the fact that he had a suggestion to pitch it to New Line Cinema (which led to ensuing writing contributions by James Wong and Glen Morgan). The resulting film was such a success that New Line approached Reddick for a sequel. He agreed while Wong and Morgan (unavailable due to other projects) were replaced by J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress. If you would like an impression of what I thought about that first film, here goes: "Cardboard cut-outs getting killed with Rube Goldberg-type deaths is still cardboard cut-outs getting killed. The curse of knowing the potential for death could have made an interesting movie, really. That, or maybe it really was something suited for television." 2021 me did not have much patience for the original Final Destination, of course it took me two years to return to this series. Actually, he thought of a movie where instead of a bunch of bland cutouts led by a guy who looked like a nerd until it became more apparent that "Death" really was coming for them, time would be best served by just making that character a real loser. Two years later, I have come up with one other idea that was inspired by viewing this cheap sequel: a killer that goes around offing people in a manner that look like accidents just so that way he can get people to believe that Death is coming for them (if you have seen a film or story that is based on any of those premises, that is cool, because, well, you won't hear me whining).
Okay, so you can't just say a movie is not good just because it doesn't have the premise better than the one you imagine in your head. But you can say it is not a good film if it doesn't do anything to improve on the original beyond perhaps diving into what might as well be ripe for parody. Maybe I should've seen it coming before, since I never really thought much of naming a character "Clear Rivers" the first time around until I thought, wait, really? I think the only time I felt anything with this film was in laughing at it rather than with it, such as the case of one death scene: a teen spooks some pigeons, which leads to them buzzing by a crane operator that leads to the operator dropping a windowpane right on the teen that reminds me of a Roadrunner cartoon. The scene where a guy decides to just use a gun to try and shoot himself only to have it not fire even with six bullets is probably the only spooky idea presented. Other than that, if you've seen the first film, you basically have seen the second film. I'm not even irritated of what I see here, I just find it hilarious that you retain two castmates from the first and only use them to basically serve as exposition (it amuses me that Larter's character responds to being flipped off by leaving the padded and safe asylum to lead to exposition because [insert reference here]). Wasting Tony Todd the second time around should be a crime, but what do I know? Anyway, the acting is the kind of cut-and-dry stuff you would expect, mildly involving but not nearly enough to make me remember an iota of who these people are. Even Larter seems bemused to be there, as if the only thing worth doing is saying exposition and looking ready for the last check to clear. The death scenes are, well, deadly, which is more of a compliment to the one who had to sketch out how a man will get killed as a result of throwing junk onto pavement minutes earlier (that, or how CGI logs will make a bigger crash than real logs, obviously). You might think I should be more fair with the rating, because, hey, it's not that much better or worse than the original. You know those latter Sherlock Holmes movies Roy William Neill did? Watching those eleven films in all of their average-ness is far more tolerable to write about than being fair to junk like this.
Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.
next up: Night of the Living Dead...remade.
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